Personal Reflection Essay: Community Practice Approaches, CHSUG 2003

This essay, written for the CHSUG 2003 Community Practice Approaches course, presents a personal reflection on the student's values and assumptions as a practitioner, activist, and advocate for social change. The author critically examines their social location, considering issues of race, privilege, and power, and how these factors influence their developing professional identity. The essay delves into societal issues such as gender and racial discrimination, cultural discrimination, and the impact of these issues on individuals and communities. The student discusses their viewpoints and assumptions on these community issues. The student also explores the importance of mitigating such issues and the need for a positive and proactive approach to building a better society for future generations. The essay references several academic sources to support the arguments presented and emphasizes the significance of understanding the root causes of social problems to effectively address them. The essay concludes by highlighting the importance of implementing social changes based on humanity and promoting positive ideology.

Running head: BACHELOR OF COMMUNITY AND HUMAN SERVICES
BACHELOR OF COMMUNITY AND HUMAN SERVICES
Name of the Student
Name of the University
Authors note

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This paper will focus on the community issues and my assumptions and viewpoints on
the same. When it comes to social issues, whether it is regarding gender, race, generational and
cultural or even personal, this is an experience every person must have experienced in some or
the other way in their lives, and advocating on context of this issue is all about digging out not
only own experiences but also to the experiences of people who belong to the same local
community where I do.
Talking about gender issue, it is very obvious that almost every society is taken over by
patriarchy and women are bound to follow the rules, regulations and traditions of the patriarchy
society which is dominated only by male members of the community. Women have always been
a victim under the domination of male members, either in their family or outside it. It is evident
in almost all societies the privileged position is always enjoyed by the male members and their
work and practices and lives are mostly valued. Along with women people who belong to
different gender or those who are transgender also suffers under the traditional notion of gender
discrimination (Costello, 2005). Another severe issue that the entire society people suffers from
is the racial discrimination, as people are judged in the most ill and vague way due to the colour
of their skin. In case of indigenous, aboriginal or native people, those people had been used by
the white colonial people in many ways, they used keep them as their servant and made them
serve them doing their household and other works, also they had been used in their military
troops, and were taught colonial education along with additional of becoming human labour and
women were taught stitching and other works in order to be used by colonial people in their
household chores (Sachs, 2000). I believe that such issues are degrading and destructive for the
over all culture of the society and the future of society, such problem deeply affects the future
generations of a community and later the entire society, as children growing up watching such

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discrimination will naturally be carrying all these practices, if it belongs to ruling class of the
society then it will grow up knowing the fact that the women are meant to be ruled over and
suppressed and people are meant to be judged by the colour of their skin, and on the other hand if
the children belongs to suffering class of the society it will naturally grow up realizing that it is
their destiny to face such discrimination, and women are meant to suffer and racism is something
normal. In order to, prevent this thought process for a better society and culture it is important to
mitigate such issues in the very first place, however, it is not easy to work on any such issues and
there will always be various types of distractions and other issues like generation gap, where the
people who belong to an old generation and holds outdated ideology and thought are hard to
convince in terms of any such major changes but people who belong to the new generation are
much easier in terms of convincing, as they know the need of the our and as an advocate it is
important for me to not just address the societal issues but rather find solutions in order to
mitigate them in some or the other way. Apart to being an advocate and community worker and
social worker, I am also a part of this same community where such things are happening from a
long time and it is still continuing which needs to be changed in every domain and in every
aspect. Understanding the root cause of these helps in dealing and mitigating such issues through
several ways, like, if we focus people who fought and raise their voices for diminishing such
discrimination are still the inspiration for dealing with these issues. There are also some other
issues like cultural discrimination, which is also a greater problem for many of the societal
people as it separates one from the other which naturally degrades the value of one cultural to the
other by making another enjoy the position of superiority, where the truth is that each and every
culture has its own values and traditions which they follow, preserve and are sensitive about.
Talking about indigenous culture, which was invaded by the colonial people and they tried

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implementing their own culture, education and practices in order to destroy and diminish natives
own culture and tradition and identity which was later rejected by some of the native people in
order to preserve their own identity, as original identity is what a specific culture seeks.
Adoption of another language, culture, tradition, education, religious practices and other things
eventually kills the original identity of a culture (Smith & Nkomo, 2003). I feel one rejecting
another cultures good values is not harmful along with leaving some the practices of original
culture it is deteriorating for any of its community people, however, it is very much important to
take in account that globalization does not means one must lose their own self and just focusing
on the other, it simply means improving the society by eliminating the bad and adopting the good
in every domain in order to make the lives of the community people better.
Hence, in conclusion it can be considered that implementing social changes by
eliminating social issues based on several factors can be dealt focusing on the field of humanity
and promoting positive ideology not only the community people but also in selves, as when it
comes to factor of changing the entire society specifically for the betterment of society people, it
is important to concentrate on the root cause, and try to mitigate that in order to build a safe,
healthy and secure future for the future generation of the society.

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References:
Costello, C. Y. (2005). Professional identity crisis: Race, class, gender, and success at
professional schools. Vanderbilt University Press.
Sachs, J. (2000). The activist professional. Journal of educational change, 1(1), 77-94.
Smith, E. L. B., & Nkomo, S. M. (2003). Our separate ways: Black and white women and the
struggle for professional identity. Harvard Business Press.